Page 1 of The Last Time

Chapter One

Charlotte

Istandonthesplintered boards of the front porch, looking at the house that used to bring me peace and tranquility. A house that was more than just a home. It was a safe haven. A place where some of my fondest memories were made.

It’s in shambles now. Paint chips are scattered along the porch, showing years of deterioration.

That’s the funny thing about a home. You have to put time and energy into it to keep it from falling apart. I suppose you can say that this home represents my relationship with my father.

After years of neglect, it’s unrecognizable. Its former beauty is hidden so far beneath the surface that you almost don’t remember if it ever existed.

It’s been a decade since I’ve set foot on this porch. It’s incredible what ten years of vacancy can do to a place. The last time I was here, my life was so much simpler. My parents were still together, and my father was…well, still a father to me.

I still remember the night he left. Although, does anyone really forget a moment like that?

Mom and I were in the kitchen making an apple pie for the end-of-summer party at the marina. We were leaving the following day to head back to Cincinnati before school started up again. I was seventeen and just about to enter my senior year of high school. I was excited to get it over with and graduate. I thought life on the other side was going to be freeing.

How naive I was.

I was helping my mom with the lattice top of the pie crust when Dad appeared by the front door, his suitcase propped up next to his left knee. He said he was just going to go back a day early for work. He used to fly back and forth throughout the summer while I stayed with my mom in a small part of Savannah, Georgia, called Isle of Hope.

I should’ve known by the look on his face that something was off. Looking back now, Mom knew. She had on a brave face after he walked out the door, but she knew.

When we got back the next day, he served her divorce papers.

Nothing was ever the same again.

Senior year turned out to be nothing like I had pictured it. And it went from bad to worse. It didn’t take my father long to find another woman to settle down with and remarry. Sometimes, I wonder if he already found her, and it just took him a while to get the courage to leave us.

Penelope was nice enough in the beginning. She put on a smile for me, faking her excitement when it was my turn to spend the weekend with them. I knew it was all a lie. Her kids were her pride and joy. I was just a nuisance she pretended to care about.

After a while, it was too much effort for her to even fake it. She thought she was subtle with her eye rolls or sighs whenever I asked my father to go somewhere with me.

“Hey, Dad,” I’d say. “What do you think about going to a Bengals game this year?”

His face would light up, only to steal a glance at Penelope, who couldn’t hide her annoyance.

“Maybe next season, sweetheart.”

Luckily, I was old enough to choose who I spent my time with. If my father didn't want me around, then I'd spend the time with friends. But the sting of him consistently choosing his new family over me never went away. Every holiday, birthday, big life event that went unattended by him was another sucker punch to the gut.

You would think after a while, the shock would wear off, but it never did. I stupidly found myself wishing—hoping—for him to come around.

But instead of feeling those feelings of anger and disappointment, I would push it all down. Pretend it never existed. Sometimes pretendhenever existed. It was easier that way. One gift I had was the ability to tune out the world and my emotions. I’m not saying it was healthy, but it worked for me.

Until now, as I stand face to face with my past.

When I got the news that my dad had passed away, the shock prohibited me from grieving.

How do you grieve the loss of someone that you lost a long time ago?

It was as if I had already mourned the loss of him at seventeen, and my brain didn’t know how to mourn a second time.

The funeral was horrible. I watched my stepmom and stepsiblings grieve him appropriately while I stood in the corner feeling like an outsider to their world. Mom was there for moral support, and I suppose because once upon a time, she loved the man.

But the two of us were strangers to him. He didn’t know that I worked for the NFL or that my mom recently took up pickleball. He didn’t know about my recent heartbreak or that Mom was still struggling financially even a decade after their divorce.

When the lawyer called me to meet him at his office regarding my father’s will, I thought it would be to formally tell me there was nothing for me in the will.

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